Last Train Home
by pagerunner
Summary: Cecil's just returned from his subway expedition, and Carlos can't help but worry what's happened to him on the journey. If only Cecil can find the right words to explain... Set just after episode 29, and following on from "A Matter of Time," also posted here.


The weather is still playing that day when a messenger child walks into the lab.

Carlos yelps and drops the sample he'd been holding; his compatriots just stare. The radio keeps crackling on, playing music through the static, but all else falls silent except for the small, pale child with ghost-gray eyes who intones, "He is returned."

"W…what?" Carlos says, for lack of anything else.

He's a little bit stunned. Since the subway had mysteriously appeared, its cavernous entrances disrupting streets all over town, he's been working himself ragged. He's still trying to get a finger on how and _why_ it showed up like this, not to mention what's happened to the passengers. He's been in the lab for hours, doing blood tests and data collection and frazzled analysis. His eyes sting, and his head's starting to ache. Now, to be interrupted in the middle of all this… and by_… well…._

Carlos shudders at the way this blind, sticky-fingered child is staring him down.

He'd never even heard of the messenger children before today. Those few on Cecil's broadcast hadn't spoken, either. This one… does. The voice sounds like it's been filtered through layers of distortion and played back through unreliable equipment. Everything about this child feels unreal - even more so than things _normally _feel in Night Vale, that is, and that makes Carlos' hair stand on end.

"_Who_ is returned?" he asks the child at last.

"The voice."

It doesn't take long before _everyone _looks at Carlos. He colors slightly, and fidgets with his collar. Cecil, then. Of course it would be Cecil.

Cecil, who'd caused him to start futilely swearing at the radio a few moments before, because _you shouldn't be going _in _there, I told you, haven't you _listened _to what I've said about passengers being changed-?_

Carlos gives the radio another look. It's still playing as if nothing is wrong. Then he returns to the blank and eerie messenger child. He _thinks_ it's a girl, although he isn't quite sure. He's also noticed the bunny rabbit patches on her torn and… _oh, dear… _ichor-spattered overalls. They probably looked cute in a past, distant life. They don't anymore.

He shakes his head and says, "Cecil's only been gone a few minutes. He left just before the song started…."

She doesn't really answer. But there's the sound, from somewhere undefined, of a distorted, tolling clock. No one else in the room seems to notice it but him - and the child, who's just inclined her little chin as if to make a point. Carlos goes cold.

"How long was he down there?" he says quietly.

The child stares unblinkingly at him. She still doesn't reply. Her unseeing eyes flash an eerie, too-familiar violet, though, and _that's _almost worse than anything she could have said.

Then she's gone.

Carlos looks down at himself. He's realizing slowly that his coat and pants are spattered with dark fluid, which left holes, and the rest of the spill is bubbling on the tiles. That hadn't even been liquid when he'd dropped it. That _had _been part of the handrail to the nearest subway steps just moments ago….

"Martinez," he says distantly, "could you help me clean this up….?"

His fellow scientist answers, but Carlos barely hears it, because the song on the radio's just ended. Cecil's voice, quieter, wondering, returns. Carlos lurches closer. He _is _back - the child's right - and he's talking about the subway ride….

What Carlos is hearing is enough to make him shiver again. Cecil hadn't merely traveled across town. The distances had been far, far stranger.

And longer.

"Carlos," someone says, obviously trying to calm him down. "It sounds like he's fine."

He waves that off and turns up the volume, just in time to hear Cecil say, _It took years, Night Vale. Years. _

"Carlos," his assistant says warningly. He doesn't listen. Before he can even stop to consider what he's doing, he's on the move, grabbing his car keys from his desk and hurrying outside.

His car's parked nearby, beside a shuttered subway stop that he flinches away from. As fast as he can, he brushes the last few straggling roaches aside, gets into the car, then cranks the engine on and the car around, heading off at a speed that causes more than one semaphore-bearing traffic guard to wave furious signals at him. He ignores them all. He's heading straight for the radio station.

The radio's on in the car too, after all, and Cecil's voice is still following him over the airwaves: _I have been missing you…. _

Carlos hits the accelerator one more time, and screeches through a cloud of desert dust to find out just how many years Cecil's lost this time.

Given what Carlos has seen of the other passengers so far, he's also desperately hoping Cecil hasn't lost anything else.

…

It's almost silent in the station after Cecil goes off air.

Station Management's been quiet this afternoon. Koshekh and the kittens are napping, and only a low-key purring is left to rattle the bathroom mirror. The next program - three hours of silence, broken by occasional animal growls and panicked human shrieking - is already cued up, and won't require any intervention for a while, so he's taken off his headphones, and turned the microphone off.

From the outside, it may look like an ordinary night at the station. But he knows better.

_I saw so much._ _So much. And I remember - _

He gets up from his chair and sways on his feet, still awash in images and sensations and the strangely sweet feeling of being _present _again. When he puts one hand to his desk for support, he finds himself concentrating on the texture of the wood, of even _having _weight to be supported like this, the tangible solidity of it all. He traces over the eye-like stain there until his fingertips tingle.

Then the silence is broken by someone shouting his name. "Cecil! Cecil, are you here?"

He _is, _suddenly, even more so than he was just a moment ago. His whole body quivers. And it's because it's Carlos - sweet, beautiful Carlos rushing into the room, looking not a bit different than he had the last time Cecil saw him. For a moment that seems wrong. Things should have changed. Then he remembers why. They'd last been together only a few hours ago - by Night Vale time.

But by his own….

_How is this possible? _he thinks, even if maybe it's best to leave that question to Carlos; he's the scientist here, and might have theories. But Cecil just waits as Carlos comes to a stop, looking flustered, and as if he doesn't entirely know what to do yet.

Cecil understands the feeling.

"What _happened?" _Carlos asks. "I was listening to your report. And then you left, and there was this creepy child in the lab telling me to go to the station, and I heard what you said after, and - God, Cecil, how long were you _gone?_"

He doesn't have an answer. _Time's broken here, _Carlos had insisted once, and it had seemed like a quaint exaggeration then. Time did whatever it wanted, and that was just the way of the world. What was the point of questioning it? But now that he'd been adrift on that journey for so, so long….

"Cecil," Carlos says again, and he reaches out. Cecil leans into his hand, pressing his cheek into that familiar warmth. Something in him nearly breaks at the poignancy of it. Just to hear Carlos say his name….

"Are you all right?" Carlos says. "Do you want me to drive you home?"

_Yes. I shouldn't drive right now - and I _can't_ take the subway again - and it would be better if I…._

"Cecil?"

Carlos is sounding a little frantic. It's like he hasn't heard a word Cecil's said. _Or maybe I didn't say it out loud, _Cecil thinks ruefully. _I haven't had anyone just to _talk_ to in so long. Me of all people, getting used to _that?

He lets action say what he suddenly can't. He enfolds Carlos into a hug.

"I missed you," he murmurs into Carlos' hair.

Carlos, still tense with confusion, lets out a shaky sigh. Then he slowly melts into it, too, letting Cecil soak up the heat and comfort of it. It's not only pleasurable, but a tremendous relief; wherever he'd been on that subway journey, it hadn't been warm.

Carlos gently holds him back after a while and says, "I'm getting you out of here. You can tell me what happened on the way."

"It'll take longer than that," Cecil warns. Carlos lets that go without comment, and leads him out of the office instead. Cecil's privately glad for that, because he has to concentrate harder than usual on the walk. He's still remembering all those subterranean pathways in and out of knowledge and back again, and it's rather all-consuming.

At least the car feels real enough when he gets there.

Carlos tosses a stack of papers into the back, clearing the passenger seat, and Cecil nudges a water bottle out of the way with his foot, making a reflexive, irritated mutter. Then a thought wiggles up from the depths: _I left that there. Last night. _Slowly he picks it up, taking an experimental swig. It hits him with a real sensory jolt, since after all, he hasn't eaten or had anything to drink in… who even knows how long?

_Four minutes, _he reminds himself, swallowing hard. _Just four minutes._

"Rhubarb," he says once his throat opens again. Carlos glances sideways at him. "That's what it tastes like."

"Wasn't it lemons yesterday?"

"These things change," Cecil says offhandedly as he studies the bottle. Carlos peers as if to say _no, they don't._ It's probably just a Carlos thing - there's so many things he still doesn't quite understand about this place - but is it also possible that something _did _go wrong? Either with the water, or himself…

He puts that aside and takes a gulp anyway.

He's got a lot of talking to do.

Carlos listens, wordless, as he drives. Cecil lets as much as he can of the story spill out. He's not certain he can get it in sequence, or anything Carlos would consider sense, and he can nearly _feel _Carlos suppressing a stream of agitated, curious questions. _Yes, he does that, _Cecil remembers fondly. _He always does. _And somehow that's what makes it possible to continue, even when he's struggling to find sufficient words for the _magnitude _of that experience. The exquisite terror and wonder and strangeness. The insight.

He's on the verge of a critical part of it when Carlos stops the car. He'd hardly noticed, but they've reached his building.

"Oh," Cecil says faintly, distracted. After a moment he adds, "It looks smaller, somehow."

Carlos gives him another look, then steps outside and comes around to get Cecil's door.

The apartment complex was never huge to begin with, of course. It's also a little haphazard in the way all Night Vale residences eventually get, thanks to ambient strangeness and the… _unorthodox _ideas of the local handyman. The stairs can be tricky, for one thing; Cecil's seen them loop people around, Escher-like, if they aren't paying enough attention. His own front door is also a special challenge. "I'll get it," Carlos says, however. Cecil admires how casually he manages the trick of the lock these days. The doorknob doesn't even try to bite him anymore.

"Thank you," Cecil murmurs, and steps inside. There, he nearly gets lost in the moment again.

"I just hope the police don't try to tow my car or anything while we're here," Carlos is saying, while Cecil steps into the middle of the room and tilts his head up, eyes drifting shut. "I broke… I don't even know how many traffic violations today…."

Cecil means to say something about how they wouldn't punish the _car _for that, but he's too busy listening to the room. The way the floorboards creak when Carlos steps in. The mysterious rustle in the closet that's defied any number of exterminators and exorcists. The faint burbling sound from the pipes. Cecil breathes in deeply, smelling the familiar air.

The lights are coming on, too, diffuse and red through his closed eyelids. When he does open his eyes again, he sees Carlos in the entry with his finger poised only halfway to the lightswitch. He's already gone from looking startled to resigned, in a _why am I even surprised _sort of way.

"I think the apartment missed you, too," he says dryly.

He's probably right. He just doesn't have any idea how much Cecil missed _it. _"Oh, Carlos," he says softly, looking at the lights. "I _am _home, aren't I?"

When his voice snags, Carlos looks wistful - and in a way Cecil can't define, almost a little afraid. But he only says, "I'll make some tea," and steps away.

Cecil nods in belated agreement. Still chasing half-formed thoughts, he sits on his old, comfortable couch and waits. It's mostly quiet again until the kettle does its ordinary banshee-like screech. Carlos, he notes, still jumps and swears whenever that happens. Cecil smiles.

And he's still smiling when Carlos returns with two steaming mugs, which is why he's confused to hear Carlos say, "Is something wrong?"

He lifts his head. "Why?"

Carlos sets down the tea and lets two fingers brush his cheek. When he turns them upward for Cecil's inspection, Cecil notices the teardrops he's gathered in the process.

"Oh," he says faintly. "Well."

Carlos waits. Cecil reaches for his mug, curls his fingers around it, breathes in the steam and takes a soothing sip or two. There's a touch of brandy in it, he notices. Mischievous Carlos. He laughs softly and shakes his head, and then Carlos is sitting down beside him. All he can do is drink deep and then lean into the offered embrace. He _is _home. Home and safe.

As safe as anyone can be in Night Vale, in any case.

"I'm glad I went, I think," he murmurs, as Carlos takes the mug from his hands and sets it aside. "I just wish I could explain it better."

"I know. It's all right."

"But you're a scientist. You need facts." He burrows in closer, one ear pressed to Carlos' chest. "And I _wish _I could tell you… what they said…."

He can nearly hear the swirl of questions again: _Who's _they? _What did they say to you? Cecil, where did you go? _But he's tired after such a long journey, and he's talked for so long now, and he's almost out of words. It's an unfamiliar feeling. So he breathes in deep, focusing instead on the heartbeat beneath him and Carlos' fingers lightly stroking through his hair. It's a drowsy, warm silence, comforting despite the uncertainty. He doesn't want to disturb it.

But there's one last thing he feels himself say.

"Carlos," he murmurs. "They told me what I was."

Carlos' breath catches, but there's no time to reassure him. Because it's in that moment of sudden stillness that Cecil slides away from the conscious world again, this time to a deep and dreamless sleep - and Carlos, his beloved Carlos, is left with his questions alone.


End file.
